Why I left teaching?

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Video transcript:

Put on this is stop. Perler.com. And I thought I’d spend some time today telling you a little bit about why I left the teaching profession. So what happened to me was that I I was a horrible student as a child and literally in first grade my report card started having negative comments like that. I was lazy or wasn’t trying hard enough or wasn’t applying myself or whatever and I didn’t know nobody knew at the time that I had on them and it’s in a type ADHD or that there is anything going on that I was struggling with and so what happened was that year after year after year, I struggled more and more in school and I started getting tested for learning disabilities in 8th grade and they found out that I didn’t have learning disabilities. At least that’s what they thought cuz they didn’t know about ADHD or anyting but they found out that I was gifted and talented so really made my parents and teachers especially confused about why is this kid not doing well, why is he not perform? Why is he not cheating things like that? And so I was confused too. I didn’t I didn’t know what was going on. But I was the student who really was a struggling student and I did not feel successful in school and I did not feel rewarded by school. The funny thing is is that I absolutely positively believe in the power of Education to help us launch great future that in order for us to have a great future the key is education now whether or not that education takes place in a school or it’s the School of Hard Knocks her and any other form of Education there many many many many many ways that we can learn that we can become educated doesn’t matter. But the point is is that in order for us to be able to go for our hopes and dreams. We have to have some sort of Education that empowers us. So anyhow, I go through a growth through middle school. I go through high school. I don’t do very well. I go to college on probation I end up failing at a college. So I started about the university and I Tell that at Ball State University because I didn’t know how to be a student that didn’t matter how I’ve been matter if I was right or not. I didn’t know how to be a student there. And then I went to a community college in Columbus, Ohio and I dropped out after two quarters before failing out because I was about to fail out of that one and I just really felt hopeless. So before I tell you why I left teaching them tell me a little bit about how I got to be a teacher in the first place. So anyhow, I started working with kids by accident after failing out of the after failing out of college and then dropping out of college. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to turn my life around and make something of myself and I just got this job working with kids and I absolutely fell in love with it. I found meaning in it. I found that I was good at it and one day after 6 months of working at this place in Indianapolis working with kids from kindergarten to 5th grade one day. I was driving home and I’m driving down the street in indianapolis this Curry Street call. Spring Mill Road Indianapolis IN may I have this little white Mazda 3 2-3 stick shift and I’m driving a long hair tie. My hair is blowing in the wind and I’m smiling driving home. And I realize that that this was meaningful to me and that I wanted to work with kids with us my life. Literally that was a very rare moment of my life. I’ve had maybe ten of them but that was a game pigeon moment of my life where I said, you know what I’m dedicating the rest of my life to the service of kids. I’m going to dinner McKay my life to helping these human beings that have a better life. So then I proceeded to try to get back in the college and I got back in the couch when I was 25 right now all my peers in college. I went back to become a teacher at the time. I decided that I would serve his going to become a teacher and I got back into any Indiana University and all my peers. I was 25 24 25, they were all 18 19 20, you know, and so is very a very interesting time for you, but I was there on a mission I knew what I was there I had a little bit more maturity in the sense that I was very mission-driven and I always have been mission-driven. So anyhow, I go through college I end up as student teaching on the Navajo Indian reservation. And then I ended up starting my teaching career on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Now you should know that my purpose for teaching was to be of service was to serve Humanity was to be helpful to Children was to help them have a great life was not help him get good test scores is not help them get good grades. It was to inspire them. It was to help them fall in love with education because my education felt so bad. It was very important to me to help these students really shine really have a great life. So from day one, I was always very focused on the purpose of Education, which I think a lot of times gets clouded as teachers are going through their career. They lose sight of the purpose. They lose sight of why they started In the first place and I just happened to never have lost sight of them. Well, I was very lucky in a lot of ways with my teaching experiences because I got to teach him a Navajo Indian reservation. And this is a place that a lot of people would say all I would never want to do that because I had no resources. We have no money. We had no textbooks. We had virtually no crank alone. We had a pink stacks of papers that were the Arizona standards have the time and pretty much designed my Cricket him and to me that was one of the biggest blessings in my entire teaching career was that I’m since we really didn’t have much I had to creatively designed thing and synthes kids. I had kids in 5th grade when I was in the Navajo Indian reservation. I have kids in 5th grade that were reading it like the kindergarten level and some that were reading in the 7th grade level. So I had this huge huge gap of of ability levels in all subject areas for my 5th graders. So I really had and I didn’t ask since I hadn’t Before that I really didn’t know I didn’t have any background to know what what it was like on the places. So I just felt free to be creative and to create curriculum that would be engaging and Thursday. I feel that the number one most important thing for a teacher to do as a as they’re teaching their kids has to be engaging us to create engaging curriculum. I call it creatively differentiated curriculum. That’s my own term that I like to use that describes how I design curriculum creatively differentiated curriculum. But that’s not what usually happens. Now. I do think that’s the number one most important word is engagement. But I think the number one most important thing for teachers to do in order to empower their kids to be engaged. They have to create emotional safety first. So to me, it takes the first 48 weeks of school to create an environment of emotional safety. We’re students know that they are safe to learn because if they don’t feel safe with the teacher, they’re not going to be able to learn and I obviously I get Suits now I practice who don’t feel emotionally safe around their teachers and they were all the shut down to see my teacher hates me things like this. So creating an emotionally safe environment for students is absolutely key at my pain is right now I taught for 12 years. I taught in the Navajo Indian Reservation. I taught in Mexico and an Arizona. I ended up teaching in Colorado. I taught in Thornton Colorado with a primarily Hispanic middle school and I taught in a gift and talented School in Colorado and a different gift and talented school does primarily for to eat kids and in a very and in a another School in Colorado, that was a very structured School in a very linear type of environment. So I don’t know all these different environments and had all these different experiences with Math Science Social Studies Reading Writing teaching all these subjects. I also started a creative writing camp for kids. And I also I got to teach preschool special education 3rd grade fifth grade 6th grade 7th grade 8th grade. And so I had all these wonderful different experiences and in some of the school environment that I taught in. I had a lot of freedom again with curriculum and being able to design things that were creative and that were engaging and I also taught in situations where it was very driven by by standards by testing by data and where there was not a lot of creativity or thought about how to make it interesting or engaging but more about how do we jump through the Hoops that were expected to jump through sew-in in those type of educational setting that have Todd and it was very stifling form. where I felt stuck and I felt like it was Richard and I felt like we were doing things that and that we’re just not necessarily in the best interest of kids either way all the different situations that I that I taught in have certain levels of dysfunction and that for me as somebody who came from place where I was a kid who almost out of high school failed out of college felt like crap about myself as a student from first grade on felt different. I had a lot of consequences. I was grounded a lot. I had a teacher saying things about me that I was lazy or that I didn’t try or that I didn’t care of things like this and I took a lot of that shame on I had to work through that stuff as an adult but being in schools where there is dysfunctional stuff going on in the teachers lounge or with certain teachers in the school or the way that Administration Dallas teachers or they’ve waited Administration dealt with families. I won the school’s I was that we had seven or eight different administrators in Seven years, I believe and every time you have a new administrator the whole culture of the school is shifted is just there was some very disruptive things and while I was trying to be of service to students. I kept running up against these experiences where I felt like the dysfunction that I was seeing was interfering with my ability to serve and I believe that it interfered with other teachers ability to serve see because I perceived teaching as an art and a science and I think that the standardization movement standardized test the fact that we still use letter grades even though it’s 2018 and letter grades or way archaic an outdated and many many many many other things that I think are just very outdated and not optimal for learning. I’m still go on those things really really frustrated me at a very deep level. I felt that other teachers were not empowered. Like I said, I believe it’s in Art and Science and I think that teachers are Craftsman their craftspeople. They have a craft and art and their job is to develop their craft do with a masters of their craft. Yeah, when we tell teachers, you’ve got to follow this Creek on this way, you’ve got to follow this prescription and then schools will change the curriculum and different subject areas every few years, since they just kidding now we’re going to use this Creek on this is the new latest and greatest. I think that that this empowers Patriots. I think that it D professionalize has to clear Over 50% of teachers leave by year five. This is an astounding in depressing statistic to me teachers are so burned out by year five that they leave something that they spent at least four years in college in Summit went on to get a master’s and it’s been all this time in college all this money in college all this heart. I mean being a teacher is one of the hardest jobs you’ll ever do I think parenting is the hardest job you’ll ever do but being a teacher has won the hearts jobs, you’ll ever do your before-school people think you have Summers off. No teachers work during the summer good teachers work developing critical in prepping for the upcoming school year during the summer if they’re also recovering from the past school year and then they often get to school early. They work through their lunches that don’t have enough planning time. They work at home at night. They work on weekends and they’re doing this for the kids and they’re not paid what they deserve to be paid in my opinion and they’re not given the resources. They need etcetera etcetera. So anyhow, I was really struggling and suffering in terms of my own conscience. I was there to serve and I felt like I was being stifled. And I felt like other teachers in the system or not being empowered to build the craft. They were being told do what you’re told follow the creek elem fit in this box follow these rules and I think that I saw a lot of teacher burnout happen to a lot of teachers who are really suffering from just overwhelmed. They weren’t able to have the time for self-care that they needed while I did not get into teaching to Lose Myself and I was losing myself in it. I really didn’t have the time. I know if an order to serve my kids they didn’t have the time for myself Care Plus. I felt like my ability to survive if there was being stifled. So where is maybe my potential for services? Let’s say 100% I was at maybe 60% of my ability to serve because there is 40% of my energy was going to think that I did not believe impacted student named meaningful way. Some of the data collection that we were required to do some of the report that we were required to just suck. Some of the way that we are required to do grades. I memorize at one school we had these grade card report things that were supposed to be more simple, but they were pages and pages of a standard that we were supposed to determine how a kid was doing on so many different metrics and it took so much time to do those. I remember it took me about a week just to do the grades on on these things not including all the time that I’ve been prepping the grades throughout the entire semester. Anyhow, it was just stifling it. It’s like teachers are human beings. They need to have time for for self care for family time and stuff like that and time to develop engaging creative differentiated curriculum that’s going to meet the needs of a wide range of students. So I was getting burned out and I was getting really frustrated that I was there to serve and and I couldn’t do it it to the extent that I wanted to. So a couple years before I left teaching I started really thinking about how can I be of more service and who do I believe I was put here to serve and what I found for me is that my favorite students to serve were struggling students were students who had executive function issues were twice exceptional students gifted and talented students that were going to the packs really any student that was struggling. I enjoyed working with that was what I felt like with my thing. I love a challenge. I love helping them with their strengths are I love helping them move forward in life. I love helping them feel good about themselves and understand how awesome there. So that was what I gravitated towards that I started saying what how can I create something because I knew I didn’t just want to be like an ADHD coach because they felt felt that that was stifling in the ways that I saw it liked what I saw ADHD coaches doing was not what I wanted to be doing. I knew that I’m being a counselor. I considered becoming a counselor and I didn’t want to feel stifled and feel like I only have 50 minute sessions and I can be right in the middle of working with someone. I asked their clocks up. You have to go that wasn’t for me and I didn’t want to be a tutor and I didn’t want to be this map. But I I really wanted to hone my skills on serving who I felt like I was meant to serve and I’m doing their way that was meaningful and on being able to have powerful relationships with a family that I work with. I believe that I don’t just work with a student but that it work with a family and I wanted to create something where I could help the parents as well and I wanted to be open-ended and I want to be able to not be boxed into a certain type of student but really help families understand all types of different things that are that are important to understand if you’re really going to try to help your child for example, emotional regulation is huge for me. I’m social emotional education is huge for me exact your function, obviously. He is huge for me. All of these things that I really believe in being engaged and I am I’m in the unique position where I’m trying to help a student now my coaching practice. I’m trying to help students navigated system that isn’t built for their brain. So it’s a really complicated situation. Where an I don’t want to be in a career where I’m lying to my family. So I will I have created something where I’m able to come in soon. Yeah, I agree. That’s busy work. Yeah, you probably won’t use that for the rest your life, but we got to do it. Anyhow, how do we do it as painlessly as possible? How do you still balance your life doing that in it? But I’m having a problem solving these weights. Anyhow, I’ve been able to create something that that really was meaningful power for me. I’m in my eighth year of it. It’s been a lot of hard work feeding it but I want to make this video just to tell my story for anybody was interested on why I left teaching and just to put it in a nutshell at the end of this video. I was there to be a service and have a good life myself. And I felt like my ability to serve was compromised because of systemic dysfunction and I felt that my ability for self-care and having a good life that I deserved and the appropriate reward for the work in the service that I was bringing to my community. I was not able to achieve that in with the teacher salary in the amount of hours that that were required in order to do what they were asking us to do. So, I made that change it was very hard because I love teaching I love the art of teaching. I love connecting with students. I love changing lives. I love a challenge. I love inspiring them. I love engaging I love designing creatively differentiated crate come I love the whole ecosystem of working with the students. I didn’t love the system. And so after it’s sold leaving was very hard to sort of make that shift and say okay. I’m letting this go I’m done. I’m at my Wit’s End the last straw has happened and I’m going to make a shift and I’m going to create my own thing and see if I can do this and believe in what I believe in and follow my heart and create something that is really meaningful to me. So I did that and it worked fortunately but I so many teachers who leave teaching never set foot in a classroom again and never work with kids again, and it is such a shame majan 50% over 50% of teachers by year five. That’s it’s just incredible to me. They’re gone. They’re not working with kids anymore. We need these people so desperately but they’re still we’re not but they left. So anyhow, that’s my story about why I laughed if you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel, you can Clips click some stride right now, and it’ll Alert, if you want what every time I post a new video If you like this video and you want to respond, you can email it to me or leave a comment on YouTube or on the blog on Facebook or whatever, but I would love to hear what you think and what your experiences is a parent or teacher wherever you’re at or what your thoughts are. I’m very very very curious to hear from other people what your story is and and how you perceive my story and and what you think we can do about this because I do think that it can cancer most important job in the world and our kids. We are leaving them with a world problems that they are going to have a good they are going to have to have a good education in order to be the people who solve the problems that they are growing up with very complex problems. And I do not think we’re doing a good enough job prepping them for this world. But anyhow, what do you think about all the stuff? I love to hear it and thanks for listening to my story. Take care.